Link to the REVISED entry for #38 Charles J. Everhardt
From Byrnes’s 1886 edition:
DESCRIPTION. Forty-five years old in 1886. Single. Slim build. Born in Baltimore, Md. High forehead. Height, 6 feet. Weight, 159 pounds. Brown hair, bluish gray eyes, sallow complexion. Wears mustache and beard of sandy color. Has a bright eye. Has an anchor in India ink, a letter “J ” and dot on left fore-arm. He is known in Canada as Charles Webb and Charles Young.
RECORD. Marsh Market Jake, the sobriquet he is best known by, has followed as a business all professions in the thieving line, beginning with till-tapping when a boy, and going up through the various grades of pickpocket, shoplifter, burglar, sneak and forger. During his lifetime he has served about fifteen years in prison, five years of which was spent in the Kingston, Canada, Penitentiary. When out of prison he works with the most expert thieves in the country, and it is only since his last release from Kingston prison that he has entered into the profession of forgery. Jake is well known in all the principal cities in the United States, especially in New York, Boston, Baltimore, Cincinnati and Chicago, Ill., where he formerly lived with Mary Ann Taylor, an old and accomplished thief. For the past twenty-five years, Everhardt, which is his right name, has been one of the most notorious and industrious sneak thieves in America.
He originally came from Baltimore, where he was born in the immediate neighborhood of the “Marsh Market,” in that city, and it is from this fact that he derives the name that he is best known by.
On April 16, 1880, Jake, under the name of Wm. Hillburn, was arrested in Philadelphia, Pa., in company of three noted sneak thieves, Billy Morgan (72), Little Al Wilson and George Williams, alias Woodward (194)— they gave the names of Roberts, Carroll and Moran — for the larceny of $2,200 in bank bills, the property of Henry Ruddy of that city. They tried to obtain their release by a writ on April 19, 1880, but failed. The whole party was convicted and sentenced to eighteen months in the Eastern Penitentiary on April 26, 1880.
Jake served another term of three months in the penitentiary at Philadelphia, having been arrested there as a professional thief, and convicted on a charge of vagrancy.
Everhardt finished a three years’ sentence in the spring of 1885, in Kingston, Canada, Penitentiary, under the name of Charles Webb, for robbing a Toronto jeweler.
He had previously been convicted in Toronto for shoplifting, in company of four notorious shoplifters named Eddie Miller (7), Sheeny Sam, Tilly Miller and Black Lena. This time he gave the name of Yost, and served five years.
Jake was arrested again in New York City on October 22, 1885, in company of Charles Fisher, alias Fountain (41), Walter Pierce, alias Porter, and Charles Denken (the man who did the forging), charged with forging a check for $460 on the Bank of New York, purported to have been signed by Leaycraft & Co., of Pearl Street, New York City. Denken confessed that he received a check for $25 from the firm, from which he forged the $460 check, and gave it to Fisher, who gave it to Pierce, who had it cashed. In this case all the others were convicted except Jake, who was discharged, but was re-arrested at once on an indictment which the Corn Exchange Bank and the Bank of America, of New York City, caused to be found against him (on the evidence of Nelson J. Gaylor and two boys named Philip Dreiger and Leonard Nickerson, who were accomplices) for forging a check of $500, drawn on the German American Bank and purported to have been signed by Baltzer & Lichtenstein, a private banking firm in New York City. On this particular charge Jake was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to ten years in State prison on January 7, 1886, by Judge Gildersleeve, in the Court of General Sessions In New York City.
There were other complaints from the Bank of America and Corn Exchange Bank, which were not tried. His counsel appealed the case, and Everhardt has remained in the Tombs prison since his conviction. Efforts were made to have him admitted to bail, without success.
From Byrnes’s 1895 edition:
Everhardt was pardoned by Governor Flower, spring of 1893. He was arrested again in New York City under the name of George Jones, on October 13, and again on November 5, 1894, and delivered to the United States authorities, who charged him with a postoffice robbery at New Albany, Ind., on October 16, 1894. The robbers secured $4,789 in stamps and $581 in currency. Stamps of the value of $1,270 were found in his possession at the time of his arrest. He was tried in the United States Court at Indianapolis, Ind., on December 3 and 4. Found guilty and sentenced to two years and six months imprisonment, fined $1,000 and the costs of court, by Judge Baker, on December 13, 1894.